What We Wanted at E3

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (or E3, as it’s known to us nerds) ended last week with a whimper after a mostly lackluster showing from all involved. The Big Three – Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft – all held forgettable press conferences with few gasp-worthy announcements for the future, aggravating gamers to no end. Instead of solely recounting what was covered, however, let’s take a look at some of the stuff that we wished had gone down at E3.

Microsoft

Halo 4. Yes, we know Bungie severed ties with Microsoft last year, freeing them to develop independently, but another Halo sequel is a no-brainer. Sure, 360 owners still have Halo Wars to look forward to, but that was announced a while ago.

Another M.I.A. game was Alan Wake, the long-anticipated, repeatedly-delayed title that can now officially be classified as vaporware. The most frustrating aspect of Microsoft’s conference was the lack of compelling new software. Sure, Resident Evil 5, Gears of War 2, and Fable 2 all look incredible, but we’ve known about them since 2007 or earlier. Gamers anticipating something new (and no, Lips and 1 vs. 100 don’t count), can now commence slamming their keyboards like the Angry German Kid.

Nintendo

For months, the Internet was abuzz with Kid Icarus Wii rumors. The fact that Nintendo included the star of the original title – Pit – in Super Smash Bros. Brawl all but confirmed that the long-dormant franchise was finally coming out of its early retirement. Then, some alleged artwork for the next-gen revival popped up and fanboys started churning out Eggplant Wizard fan-art en masse. Nintendo quashed those hopes (for the time being, at least), revealing absolutely no information about the game. We still don’t even know if it’s officially in the works or not.

Other notable Nintendo no-shows: Disaster: Day of Crisis, Project H.A.M.M.E.R., Pikmin 3, The Legend of Zelda, and Kirby Wii. And what about that Wii storage solution you’ve been hinting at, Nintendo? Deleting games from the system’s paltry 512MBs of memory in order to download more games is not working, especially for us geeks and otakus.

Sony

Although the PS3 has made some headway recently, it’s become painfully obvious that it most likely won’t acquire the sales or exclusive content that defined its predecessors’ mega-successful eras. Why, then, is Sony standing by the introductory price point of $399 for their gaming monolith when most of its software library is also available on the cheaper Xbox 360? Another price drop is in order. The PS3 doesn’t have enough exclusive content to justify the price tag, especially considering they just lost the exclusive rights to FFXIII, arguably the biggest gun in their arsenal. Although they seem to have a great deal of content in the pipeline, they suffer from the same problem as their competitors: not enough new games. God of War III will likely be amazing, but a quick-and-dirty CG teaser just confirms what we already knew: Sony isn’t dumb enough to retire one of its biggest franchises.  Speaking of big franchises, where is Jak and Daxter 4 and the new Team Ico game?